Today’s question comes from Ed Sonshine, chief executive of RioCan, which owns the Yonge Eglinton Centre. When, he asked in rather colourful language, will the city find a use for the abandoned bus terminal lands on the southwest corner of Yonge and Eglinton?

In 1921, the TTC, in 27 transactions, acquired the land stretching from Yonge Street to Duplex Avenue, from Eglinton Avenue to Berwick Avenue. When the subway opened in 1954, the TTC also opened a 93,945 square-foot (roughly one-hectare) TTC bus terminal on the corner of Yonge and Eglinton, with a pedestrian walkway below.

“After a little more than 50 years, the concrete deteriorated to the point where it was unsafe,” explains Graham Tulett, project manager in the TTC property development department. “There was a fear that the slab would collapse.” In 2004, the TTC moved all buses serving Eglinton station to a temporary terminal to the south. Since then the bus terminal has sat unused.

The TTC planned to repair the abandoned bus terminal; now, the TTC plans to demolish it and use the site as a staging area for offices and earth movers as it digs the new Eglinton Crosstown light rail line.

“This is a key location for actually constructing the LRT,” Mr. Tulett says. “And it is likely to be the extraction point for our tunnel boring machines.” Domenic Garisto, the TTC’s chief property development officer, estimates the LRT job will stretch through 2019.

“We gotta put the transit stuff in first, and the rest we can convey to Build Toronto for development,” Mr. Garisto says. Mr. Sonshine will have to wait at least a decade to see anything permanent built at that spot.

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